Featured Research

from universities, journals, and other organizations

A Rock From The Red Planet: A New Martian Meteorite Found In The Sahara

Date:

August 19, 1998

Source:

Max Planck Society

Summary:

Several observations make this finding exciting news and are an enrichment of meteoritical sciences. This meteorite is the first Martian meteorite found in the hot desert climate of the Sahara. It is the first one found since 1994 and also the first since the discussion whether there is life on Mars began two years ago.

Share This

The discovery of a new Martian meteorite was announced by Dr. Jutta Zipfel from the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry in Mainz. Members of the institute’ staff classified this meteorite based on results from mineralogy, chemistry, and inert gas analyses. An official announcement was made during the 61st Meteoritical Society meeting in Dublin 1998 which took place two weeks ago.

Related Articles

Several observations make this finding exciting news and are an enrichment of meteoritical sciences. This meteorite is the first Martian meteorite found in the hot desert climate of the Sahara. It is the first one found since 1994 and also the first since the discussion whether there is life on Mars began two years ago. Now, the number of Martian meteorites has increased to a total of 13, a small number if compared to the total of more than 20,000 meteorite specimens known so far. A fragment of the meteorite was given to the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry in Mainz by a private finder for scientific purposes. The rock weighs a little over 2 kg and is shaped like a loaf of bread.

During a five-minute speech, Zipfel presented results from inert gas, chemical and mineralogical studies. The inert gas inventory of the atmosphere of Mars is very characteristic and well known from the Viking mission measurements on the surface of Mars in 1976. This is, so far, the strongest evidence that meteorites having this inert gas fingerprint must come from Mars. Inert gases present in this meteorite clearly puts it in the group of Martian meteorites. Typical elemental ratios obtained by bulk chemical analyses of a chip of the new meteorite soon confirmed this finding. In addition, mineral chemistry and petrographic observations, such as the presence of feldspathic glass, rounded out the picture. ‘We had no doubt that this was a Martian meteorite,’ said Zipfel, who made the announcement at the MSM in Dublin.

During the meeting, Zipfel gave British scientists from the Open University a 150 mg sample for analysis of the oxygen isotopic composition of the meteorite. These measurements were carried out one week after the Dublin announcement and their results are consistent with findings obtained by the Max Planck scientists.

Inert gas analyses show that this meteorite was ejected from Mars about 1 million years ago, marking an ejection event unknown from other Martian meteorites, said Zipfel in her presentation. After that, the meteorite took its time to travel through space before it was captured by the gravity of the Earth and landed in Northern Africa. It was collected there in May of this year and immediately brought to the German Max Planck Institute for classification. The meteorite is the first find of its group in a hot desert environment. Clearly, it carries along with it its desert history, in that it is penetrated throughout by veins filled with terrestrial weathering products. ‘The search for past evidence of life in this meteorite will be severely impeded because it was lying in the hot desert for probably thousands of years and not in a relatively sterile environment such as Antarctica’, said Zipfel. However, it will give scientists the opportunity to gain further knowledge about geochemical processes on Mars and new insights into its evolution as a planet.

The chemical study of Martian meteorites and their implications for the bulk composition of Mars has a long tradition with scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry in Mainz. Their development of the APXS instrument was selected by NASA’s Mars "Pathfinder Mission". Measurements with this instrument made it possible for the first time to analyse rocks sitting on the surface of Mars.

Max Planck Society. "A Rock From The Red Planet: A New Martian Meteorite Found In The Sahara." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 19 August 1998. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/1998/08/980819081620.htm>.

Max Planck Society. (1998, August 19). A Rock From The Red Planet: A New Martian Meteorite Found In The Sahara. ScienceDaily. Retrieved March 3, 2015 from www.sciencedaily.com/releases/1998/08/980819081620.htm

Max Planck Society. "A Rock From The Red Planet: A New Martian Meteorite Found In The Sahara." ScienceDaily. www.sciencedaily.com/releases/1998/08/980819081620.htm (accessed March 3, 2015).

More From ScienceDaily

More Space & Time News

Featured Research

Mar. 3, 2015 — Like the lost little puppy that wanders too far from home, astronomers have found an unusually small and distant group of stars that seems oddly out of place. The cluster, made of only a handful of ... full story

Mar. 3, 2015 — Meteorologists sometimes struggle to accurately predict the weather here on Earth, but now we can find out how cloudy it is on planets outside our solar system, thanks to new ... full story

Mar. 3, 2015 — Recent research contributes to the effort to determine the nature of dark matter, one of the most important mysteries in physics. As indirect evidence provided by its gravitational effects, dark ... full story

Mar. 2, 2015 — Dust plays an extremely important role in the universe -- both in the formation of planets and new stars. But the earliest galaxies had no dust, only gas. Now an international team of astronomers has ... full story

Mar. 2, 2015 — NASA's Dawn spacecraft has returned new images captured on approach to its historic orbit insertion at the dwarf planet Ceres. Dawn will be the first mission to successfully visit a dwarf planet when ... full story

Mar. 2, 2015 — An international team of researchers has demonstrated a way to assess the quality of water on Earth from space by using satellite technology that can visualize pollution levels otherwise invisible to ... full story

Feb. 27, 2015 — A new type of methane-based, oxygen-free life form that can metabolize and reproduce similar to life on Earth has been modeled. It is theorized to have a cell membrane, composed of small organic ... full story

Feb. 27, 2015 — Astronomers using data from NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE, have found a cluster of stars forming at the very edge of our Milky Way galaxy. This is the first time astronomers ... full story

Feb. 26, 2015 — If you put a camera in the ice machine and watched water turn into ice, the process would look simple. But the mechanism behind liquids turning to solids is actually quite complex, and understanding ... full story

NASA EDGE: SMAP Launch

NASA (Mar. 2, 2015) — Join NASA EDGE as they cover the launch of the Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) spacecraft live from Vandenberg Air Force Base. Special guests include NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden, SMAP Project System Engineer Shawn Goodman and Lt Col Brande Walton and Joseph Sims from the Air Force. No word on the Co-Host&apos;s whereabouts.
Video provided by NASA

Related Stories

Aug. 27, 2014 — Was Mars -- now a cold, dry place -- once a warm, wet planet that sustained life? Research underway may one day answer those questions -- and perhaps even help pave the way for future colonization of ... full story

Nov. 20, 2013 — As NASA prepares to launch a new Martian probe, a Florida State University scientist has uncovered what may be the first recognized example of ancient Martian crust. Using a powerful microprobe ... full story

July 24, 2013 — By directing energy beams at tiny crystals found in a Martian meteorite, geologists have proven that the most common group of meteorites from Mars is almost four billion years younger than many ... full story

Jan. 3, 2013 — After extensive analyses, researchers have identified a new class of Martian meteorite that likely originated from Mars's crust. It is also the only meteoritic sample dated to 2.1 billion years ... full story

ScienceDaily features breaking news and videos about the latest discoveries in health, technology, the environment, and more -- from major news services and leading universities, scientific journals, and research organizations.